Wednesday, August 11, 2010

"Mrs. Fields" Chocolate Chip Cookies

When Mrs. Fields first opened shop many years ago, I became an instant fan. The cookies were fresh and warm, she offered my favorite milk chocolate chip cookie without nuts, they were of a thickness that I approved of (prior to this I had been baking the Nestle Tollhouse recipe and making do with flat cookies) and they smelled so good. Plus her cookie stands were located at the mall and me likey the mall.

My palate has become more sophisticated since then and Mrs. Fields’ Cookies much more commonplace. My cookie allegiance these days are more with Specialty’s or what comes out of my own oven. However, I have a sentimental soft spot for Mrs. Fields’ Cookies (although since her divorce from Mr. Fields, she’s technically not “Mrs. Fields” anymore…..but I digress) since she launched around the time I was really getting into baking. There was a time in my baking life when I obsessed with copying her cookie. I bought her autobiography and read her story on how she got started. I bought her cookbooks when they came out. But I could never really replicate her cookies, not even with her cookbook recipes or with the tips she says she uses with her cookies. I was going more for the thickness of the cookie rather than the taste and could never duplicate it, no matter which recipe I tried. Of course now I know having a convection oven helps but at the time I kept thinking if I could just find the right recipe, I could hit it. In my quest, I found this recipe from http://www.topsecretrecipes.com. I’m sure I made it at the time but have no memory of how it turned out so I made it again last week.

Hmm, no, once again, not like a Mrs. Fields’ cookie. It spread too much. But it tasted like a good standard chocolate chip cookie so if you’re looking for one, you can add this as another variation of the original Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie. I made the cookie dough and froze the dough balls then baked a batch to take into work (yes, they liked it). I still have some cookie dough in the freezer so when I want/need dessert after dinner, I throw a dough ball into a little ramekin and bake it off. To be topped with a little scoop of ice cream and eaten warm. In the ramekin, it’s not allowed to spread and tastes just fine. Oh, one last note - the recipe says to bake for only 9-10 minutes and that you might be tempted to leave it in there for longer but you should take it out as it'll continue cooking on the cookie sheet. Use your judgment. At 10 minutes, these were still raw looking so I baked them a few minutes longer before I took them out. They were still underbaked but more the way I like them.

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F.2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla.3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.5. Stir in the chocolate chips.6. With your fingers, place golf ball-sized dough portions 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.7. Bake for 9-10 minutes or just until edges are light brown.